"Are we the owners of our own work?"

04-17-2008 | 08:11 PM EST

"Are we the owners of our own work?" a distraught J.K. Rowling rhetorically asked the court during day three of a trial at a Manhattan federal court to block publication of Steven Vander Ark's "The Harry Potter Lexicon" according to an Associate Press article out today. For those of you who haven't been following this case, Rowling, author of the Harry Potter book series, claims that the unauthorized Lexicon, published by RDR Books, is in violation of her copyrights and must not be published. According to Vander Ark, the Lexicon simply provides a guide to the characters, places and spells in Rowling's works, but Rowling maintains that Vander Ark has simply stolen her words. U.S. copyright law allows academics, critics, journalists, and teachers to use excerpts of an author's work on a limited basis. It remains to be seen whether this will protect Vander Ark or not. The trial is expected to be lengthy, and highly-esteemed legal minds are already weighing in on both sides of the argument. What I personally find particularly interesting about today's news, though, is that quote from Rowling. To me, it seems like this is a pretty good example of the way in which "ownership" and "usage" issues are getting more and more muddied these days. It also seems to me that the heart of the case is not really about whether Rowling owns her work but what right that ownership gives her to control how the public at large-uses and relates to it. This should be a particularly interesting story to follow with a cascading fallout for years to come no matter what the final decision is. To find out more, read the complete AP story.

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